Achieve College Success

When I was young I would frequently say to my father, “I want to hurry up and get through with school” or “I want this or that to happen faster.” His reply was “Don’t wish your life away.” In other words, enjoy the journey and your life right now, instead of feeling frustrated because you have not yet arrived at your destination.

Life consists of both journeys and destinations. Journeys lead us to our destinations. For example, if you are a college freshman pursuing a college degree this is part of your journey. It may be a journey that takes you four or more years to complete. Your college degree or goal is your destination (which will probably begin a new journey). It is not that the journey is bad and the destination is good. Both can be perceived as good, especially if you enjoy them. They are both helping you to fulfill your desires and goals.

You are only guaranteed the present moment in which you are now living. The past is a memory and the future is uncertain and has not yet arrived. Now, in the present moment of your life, is the time that you can live, act and enjoy. Both your journey and your destination can only be experienced in the present and both of them can be enjoyed.

The problem is that many of us become impatient with the journey to our goals. Then frustration and discouragement replaces feelings of success, optimism and enjoyment. During the journey it is as if you are planting seeds and nurturing the soil before your effort bears fruit. There is a story about this that I tell my students which helps them to see the journey in a different light and to become more patient for results from their efforts.

The Story of the Chinese Bamboo Tree

This is a true story about the Chinese bamboo tree which may contain lessons and truths that can be applied to your life. You start by planting a seed in the ground and then you must water and fertilize it frequently. After one year there are no visible signs above ground that the seed has sprouted and that growth is occurring. You continue to water and fertilize the seed for another year, and still, there are no apparent results from your efforts. So you continue to water and fertilize the ground where you planted the seed for a third year, but you still see nothing happening. You continue for a fourth year and still there is no apparent growth.

During the fifth year you can begin to see a shoot above ground and signs that growth is occurring. And then something remarkable happens! The tree grows over 90 feet in six weeks. Eventually the seed you planted is capable of becoming a tree that grows over 200 feet tall.

Once the bamboo tree becomes visible (even as a shoot) it grows rapidly. What was happening during all of those years that you were watering and fertilizing the seed? It was developing strong and wide root structures to support the tree and its rapid growth above ground. In other words, the foundation upon which it would grow and stand was being developed during the first four years.

Lessons from the story:

• Your life dreams are like seeds

• Plant, water and nurture your dream seeds

• Keep working and be patient

• Results may remain invisible for some time

• Just as a tall tree can arise from a tiny seed, so can your dream
seeds manifest into something great

• Take care of the seeds and reap the harvest

Please answer and think about the following questions:

1. What is one experience from your life that is similar to a lesson in the story of the Chinese bamboo tree?

2. How can you apply an important lesson in the story to your life? What is that lesson and the action you will take?

Copyright 2010. Raymond Gerson

Best regards,

Raymond Gerson

A primary goal of President Obama’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization proposal is college and career readiness for all students. Increasing high school graduation rates and preparing students for post-secondary education success is necessary to prepare students for 21st century skilled jobs.

Most students who do not go beyond a high school diploma will be doomed to mediocre, low paying and back breaking jobs for the rest of their lives. This is one reason why Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education spoke to the House Committee on Education on March 3, 2010 about the administration’s proposal. He said college pathways and accelerated learning programs are needed to prepare students for post-secondary education and career success.

Many colleges already offer college success courses to increase retention, grades and graduation rates. Similar courses and strategies are needed in high schools to teach students how to learn better and to maximize their performance. Several colleges have conducted studies to demonstrate that a wide variety of study skills and interventions help students to get positive results.

Research on how the brain learns has provided educators with information for developing strategies which can increase college readiness and success. Here are just a few:

1. Creating a positive emotional climate enhances learning and retention. Educators need to build rapport, trust and a feeling of safety so students will take risks, ask important questions and develop positive mind sets.
2. Content and teaching methods need to stimulate positive emotions in the students for better understanding, retention and recall of material. Stories, stimulating questions, visual imagery and music can be used effectively. For example, some DVDs can be used that contain visual imagery, music and a powerful message related to the topic. This can be followed by group discussions and cooperative learning activities.
3. Information needs to make sense to students. Students can be taught to come up with real life examples from their own lives or the lives of others to make sense out of the new material.
4. Information needs to be relevant to the students. They need to be taught how new information relates to them. For example, a teacher recently told me that a student thought learning to write well would be a waste of his time. He asked, “Why should I bother with learning to write well?” She replied, “Because if I was an employer I wouldn’t hire you unless you could write well. You would not even be able to do well filling out the job application and that would be a turnoff.” This gave the student a reason that not only made sense, but he could relate to it and the teacher definitely got his attention. He wanted to eventually find a good job and now he had a reason to improve his writing skills.
5. Positive self-concept aids learning. Brain research has demonstrated that learning is enhanced by a positive self-concept or self-image. Conversely, a negative self-concept makes learning more difficult. If a student thinks of himself as a poor student he will probably perform accordingly. There are many ways educators can help students to improve their self-concept. Here is one example: Teach students to set a series of very small goals and encourage them to accomplish them. Every time students achieve a small goal it will improve their self-confidence, self-esteem and create more of a success mindset.

In conclusion, providing students with emotionally impactful content and teaching methods, presenting information that makes sense and is relevant, and improving their self-concept are a few strategies that will increase learning and prepare them for college and career success.

Copyright 2010. Raymond Gerson

Best regards,

Raymond Gerson

There is a large gap between high school student preparation and college demands. This is one of the conclusions of the ACT National Curriculum Survey which was given to thousands of educators and released January 23, 2010.

Current high school learning standards do not adequately prepare many students for college. This is one reason why so many students drop or fail out during their first year of college.

The National Governor’s Association and Council of Chief State School Officers recently met to develop “Common Core State Standards.” One of their conclusions was that higher level thinking skills must be taught in high schools to prepare students for college and career success. These skills include reasoning, synthesis, analysis, and problem solving. In other words students need to be taught critical and creative thinking and not just how to memorize and regurgitate.

Many high school teachers are no longer using models for higher level thinking such as Bloom’s Taxonomy or similar systems. Teachers typically challenge students by giving them more work on lower levels of thinking such as recall of information. Even if students are required to recall increasingly larger amounts of information, they will still be functioning on the lowest level of thinking.

Students also need to be taught higher level thinking such as how to analyze a problem, how to see the big picture, and how to judge the accuracy of information. In addition to higher level thinking, students need to be taught soft skills which can be applied to all subjects. For example, they need to know how to set and achieve goals, manage their time effectively, become active and self-directed learners and know how they learn best. This is why I have been training high school teachers and counselors how to teach their students practical how-to study strategies and skills. They receive a user friendly turnkey student success acceleration system including book/workbook, Power Points and instructor’s manual.

Practical Response to Intervention (RTI) strategies are needed for both at-risk and regular students. As educators, let’s start teaching our students the higher level thinking and study skills that they need to succeed in college and in the 21st century workforce.

Copyright 2009. Raymond Gerson

Best regards,

Raymond Gerson

Reading Comprehension Strategy Makes Student Scream (Part 2)

I promised in my last blog to give you the results of my friend’s study. Before I share his comments and results I want to share what has happened with a few of my students. A couple of my students made failing grades on two of my quizzes. I asked them to prepare for the next exam by reading the chapter once, but to stop after each paragraph and explain it out loud. The latest brain research indicates that most people can remember 90% of what they teach or explain compared to 10% of what they hear and 20% of what they both hear and see. Both of my students tried this strategy and they made As on the next quiz. Another student improved from a D average on previous quizzes to a B after using this technique.

My friend is Lynn Skaggs, PhD and professor of Psychology at Central Texas College. Here are his results in his own words:

The results were really good. I had 25 students participate and were pretty evenly distributed among the three groups: 1 – read once summarizing each paragraph out loud before going to the next paragraph; 2- read the chapter 3 times; 3 – do both.

I compared their grade with the average on their previous two tests.

Group 1 – grade increased 23%
Group 2 – grade increased 21%
Group 3 – grade increased 24%

There is really no significant difference in performance among the groups. The increase is the equivalent of a student averaging 75 increasing to a 92.

A confound was that almost all of Group 3 had good grades on their previous two tests so their ability to improve was very limited. So, I looked at only students who had D or F averages:

Group 1 – increase 28%
Group 2 – increase 28%

This is the equivalent of a student with a 60 average increasing to 77 – from failing to passing.

Group 3 – There was only one student with D or F in this group, but his grade increased 57%!

Since there is really no difference between the study techniques, it probably comes down to a student finally studying period and using almost any technique that requires lots of involvement with the text.

The main technique error is in barely studying the text and focusing on notes taken from the text instead. That seems to be the recipe for failure.

Read the text, read the text, read the text is the recipe for success. However, the most important ingredient for success is the student deciding to study and be successful -deciding to stop texting friends and to work at their studies!

Best regards,
Raymond Gerson

Reading Comprehension Strategy Makes Student Scream

Why did a student in a college Psychology course let out a loud scream of delight, leap out of her chair, run down the aisle and then give her professor a big hug? Read on for the rest of the story.

A friend of mine is a Professor of Psychology who is also helping his students to improve their reading comprehension. He gives tough exams and many of his students fail the tests unless they understand the concepts and principles.

Last semester he started advising a few students who were failing to read each chapter three times. He also advised these students to stop after reading each paragraph and explain it out loud to themselves. Instructions were not to go to the next paragraph until they could explain the meaning of the preceding one. This strategy was being offered to the students to help them become active readers in which they thoroughly engaged with the material for understanding and then through repetition stored the information in their long term memories.

Several students who used this strategy went from making “Fs” to making “As.” One of the students was so excited when she received her grade of “A” that she hollered out loud, bolted from her seat, ran down the aisle toward her professor and then gave him a big hug. Prior to this experience she was failing all of her college courses in spite of reading the chapters in her textbooks.

Now my friend has decided to conduct an experiment and do some action research to find out which of three different strategies will improve reading comprehension and test scores the most.

One group of students plans to read the chapters once before the next test, but will also pause after each paragraph and explain it out loud. They are not to go to the next paragraph until they understand the meaning of the preceding paragraph. Group 2 will read the chapters three times, but will not pause and explain the paragraphs. Group 3 will read each chapter three times and will also explain each paragraph three times.

Which of these three strategies will work best and in what order? Which group will make the highest scores? Which one will prove to be the most effective reading comprehension strategy? I will find out and will share the information with you in my next blog.

Copyright 2010. Raymond Gerson

Best regards,

Raymond Gerson

Listen to Your Life and Discover Work You Were Born to Do

“Is the life I am living, the same as the life that wants to live in me?” These are the words of Parker Palmer from his book, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation.

Are you living your life based on “oughts” and “shoulds” or on what your life and inner voice are calling you to do? It is easy to fall into the trap of pursuing a career because you or others believe this is what you “ought” to do. And yet, to “follow your bliss” and to discover the work that you were meant to do, you must listen to your heart.

Parker Palmer spent years in vocations which were not aligned with his true nature and best talents. This resulted in his being depressed for many years of his life. Eventually he returned to teaching and helping educators. This work was in harmony with the life that wanted to be expressed through him. Greater job satisfaction and the ability to make a positive contribution were the result.

One of my college students was depressed and was self-sabotaging by missing classes and turning his school work in late. For years he and others believed that he “should” become a nurse. More self-reflection helped him to realize that nursing would not be fulfilling. He had worked in hospitals before and did not enjoy it. Recalling the joy of being an athletic trainer’s assistant while in high school made him realize that he wanted to go in a different direction. For example, he remembered patching up the quarterback who went back into the game and scored the winning touchdown. This experience made him feel joy and a sense of purpose and accomplishment.

My student changed his college major and began pursuing the goal of becoming an athletic trainer. His depression disappeared, papers were turned in on time and he attended every class. He was inspired, happy, and self-motivated. His grades began to improve and he seemed like a different person.

This is an example of what can happen when you stop living your life according to “oughts” and begin living the life that wants to live in you. The clues to a career that is right for you are in your life. Let your life speak and then listen to your own inner voice. This is how you can discover the work you were born to do.

Copyright 2009. Raymond Gerson

Best regards,

Raymond Gerson